Turkey approves Sweden’s application to join NATO

The Turkish Parliament in the evening of 23 January approved the application of Sweden to join the North Atlantic Alliance. This was reported by the Turkish news channel TRT Haber.


On 23 January, the Turkish Parliament held a debate on Sweden’s application to join NATO. The discussion of this issue lasted 4 hours. A total of 346 deputies voted: “in favour” – 287, against – 55, abstained – 4.

The relevant decree must be signed by the President of Turkey. In the case of Finland, it took Recep Tayyip Erdogan a few days.

Now the last country preventing Sweden from joining NATO remains Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he has already sent his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson an invitation to Budapest for talks on the issue.

The press service of NATO announced a meeting of defence ministers of the Alliance, which will be held on February 15 in Brussels.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence that Ukraine was “gradually deflating” in the conflict with Russia and that the situation on the battlefield was changing.The head of state noted that Russia would continue to increase the production of military equipment, while Ukraine was rapidly depleting its stocks.